21 September

What I’m Reading

by Jon Katz
Books for the book tour

I guess because I’m a writer, people often ask me what I’m reading. I’m about to head out on a book tour that will last about a month – I’ll be blogging from wherever I am – and on a book tour I spend a lot of time in airports and planes and motels.  I also don’t do much other writing because tours are so intense – interviews, readings, etc. So I try and read good books to stay focused and settled.

Right now, I’m reading the above  books – Michael Lewis is a favorite writer of mine, and his new book “Boomerang,” on the collapse of over-leveraged western economies, is riveting. It even manages to be funny, though the message is pretty sobering. He starts by showing us the financial catastrophes in Greece, Iceland and Ireland and just when we are gratetful not to be them, he shows us that we are them.  I am loving “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern, a magical work. I much loved “The Last Werewolf” by Glenn Duncan and have not finished “Please Look After Mom” by Kyung-Sook Shin, although I love the first third. I am taking “Last Man In Tower,” by Aravind Adiga, on the road – a moral tale of modern India’s business ascent – and then “The Art Of Fielding,” by Chad Harbach.

I just finished a Walter Mosely mystery. He’s very smooth.

 

21 September

Where Is Rose? What I see. What I know.

by Jon Katz
Where is Rose?

Where is Rose? When I saw her topple over a couple of weeks ago, just before a book tour on grieving for animals, I wondered if she was leaving the world just as I wrote about losing beloved pets. There was a powerful symmetry to that. It did not happen.

Rose has been to the vet, had her anti-biotics, anti-inflammatories, painkillers, X-rays. The vet isn’t sure what was wrong with Rose, and neither am I. He’s ready to do more tests. I’m not.

My sense of her is that she has had enough running around. Her legs seem sore, tired, she doesn’t move as quickly, get around the sheep as fast. Well, neither do I. Americans seem to have been taught that the process of life triggers panic, alarm, confusion, medications, money and tests.These have all the answers. Rose isn’t going that route.

I’m not so sure, not for her, not for me. Many people diagnosed her over the Internet, prayed for her, worried about her, gave me their ideas, experiences home remedies. Odd, I thought, how the animal world keeps paralleling the human world. We seem perpetually stunned and panicked by life and by the fact we wil all be taking the same trip, one way or another, people and pets. We can’t really stop it, only choose how we wish to do it, and manage the quality of life we have left. We are taught to urge others to do what we do, rather than let them make their own choices.

I took Rose out to the pasture last night to take a look at her. The last few weeks have reminded me how much I love working with her, how good we are together. She is keen, confident, efficient. She has definitely slowed, changed,  and no wonder. She’s been kicked a hundred times, run over,  been infected, poisoned,  trampled, cut and butted. She is not old, but her pace and  demeanor has changed. Fow now, that’s my diagnosis. For now, no more tests, trips to the vet.

I’ve been thinking about it. A lot. This is how I do it. In my own head.

This is, I think, where I think Rose is in life. Less work, more thoughtul work. Not retirement, but not her previous load either. I don’t want to rely on vets and tests and pills just now, but on my own sense of her, honed over thousands of hours of working together. We forget sometimes that we know our dogs better than anyone, and our society teaches us to trust everyone but ourselves. I trust myself. I will do well by Rosie. That means watching her, listening, changing my mind if necessary.

I love the Rose I saw last night. Working through hordes of gnats, flies, mosquitoes (hurricane legacy), focused, professional, undeterrable, smart. This is how I will keep her. That’s where we will leave it.For now.

You are invited to come along and take a look for yourself. See what I saw.

 

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21 September

Video: Simon’s Call. Our Covenant

by Jon Katz
Simon's Call

Every morning, no matter the weather or how busy I am, I go out and find Simon, and wherever he is, however far up in the pasture, he finds me. I greet him and he greets me, with his joyous bray, and we join in the call to life, one of the most important parts of my day. I take Simon’s bray as a celebration of life, a reminder to see the light and beauty of the world and to capture it, to be open to the joy of life as well as the sorrows, to be a light unto the world not by preaching or arguing, but by living a good and loving life, fully and meaningfully.

I do not know what is in the mind of a donkey or a dog, but this is our covenant, Simon and I, our contract and I intend to keep my end of the bargain, and so, I believe, does he. Come and see:

21 September

Simon and Maria: How The World Endures

by Jon Katz
Simon and Maria: How The World Endures

The mystics wrote that God created the people on the earth to love: to love themselves,  others, the poor, and most of all, their lives. He gave, he said, the gift of the creative spark and commanded human beings to use it, to live their lives fully and with freedom and self-determination.

In our time, religion is much more often associated with anger,judgment, hatred and self-righteousness. Love is how the world endures, said the mystics. It is the point. It has become a cliche, something mouthed by marketers and politicians and opportunists, but I take it this way: I am called to love my life, and to live it full and meaningfully. That is a gift to the world.

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